Al-Zahraʾ and the Magnitude of the Tragedy of Imam al-Husayn (a) and His Children
(And what is other than it is greater than it..)
Ibn Qulawayh narrates in Kamil al-Ziyarat this great narration, which shows the magnitude of the tragedy of Karbala, and the magnitude of the weeping of our Lady and our Mistress al-Zahraʾ (a) over what happened in it.
From Abu Basir, who said: I was with Abu ʿAbd Allah (a), talking with him, when his son came in to him, and he said to him: Welcome, and embraced him and kissed him.
And he said: May Allah demean whoever demeans you, take vengeance on whoever has wronged you, forsake whoever forsakes you, and curse whoever killed you; and may Allah be for you a guardian, a protector and a helper,
for long indeed has been the weeping of the women, and the weeping of the prophets, the truthful ones, the martyrs and the angels of heaven.
Then he wept and said: O Abu Basir, when I look at the children of al-Husayn, there comes over me what I cannot control, because of what was done to their father and to them.
O Abu Basir, Fatimah (a) weeps for him and sobs, and Hell heaves a groan—were it not that the keepers hear her weeping and have prepared themselves for that, out of fear that a neck might come out of it, or its smoke might escape and burn the people of the earth—so they guard it [so they restrain it] as long as she is weeping, and they rebuke it and fasten its gates, out of fear for the people of the earth; and it does not become still until the voice of Fatimah al-Zahraʾ becomes still.
And the seas are about to burst open, so that some of them would enter upon others, and there is not a drop of them but that an angel is appointed over it; so when the angel hears her voice, he extinguishes its fire with his wings and holds some of them back from others, out of fear for the world and what is in it, and for whoever is on the earth,
so the angels remain apprehensive, weeping for him because of her weeping, calling upon Allah and imploring Him; and the people of the Throne and those around it implore, and voices of the angels rise in sanctifying Allah, out of fear for the people of the earth; and were a single voice of their voices to reach the earth, the people of the earth would be struck down, the mountains would be cut to pieces, and the earth would quake with its people.
I said: May I be made your ransom, this matter is tremendous.
He said: What is other than it is greater than it—what you have not heard. Then he said to me: O Abu Basir, would you not love to be among those who support Fatimah (a)?
So I wept when he said it, and I could not speak, and he could not speak to me because of weeping. Then he rose to the prayer-place to supplicate, and I went out from his presence in that state. I took no benefit from food, sleep did not come to me, and in the morning I was fasting and fearful, until I came to him; and when I saw that he had calmed, I calmed, and I praised Allah that no punishment had descended upon me.
* Kamil al-Ziyarat, p. 82, hadith 7.
